After Icebergs
This exhibition was on display from November 16, 2019 to March 13, 2020.
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In the summer of 1859, Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900)—the most celebrated American landscape painter of his time—journeyed to Newfoundland and Labrador to study and sketch icebergs. Arctic exploration had captured the imagination of the public in the preceding decades, and Church was lured to the North Atlantic by accounts of a surreal polar landscape. To document the voyage, Church bought along Louis Legrand Noble, a clergyman and friend, who later published an account of the trip titled After Icebergs with a Painter. Moving day after day between a chartered schooner and a rowboat, Church grappled with how to capture the form, surface, colors, and motion of the icebergs before him and the luminous sea and sky that surrounded them. One hundred and sixty years later, Church's studies are at once seductive and frighteningly poignant. The icebergs found in today's oceans—caused by the melting of glaciers' edges—are a symptom of our rapidly warming Earth. These studies, drawn from Cooper Hewitt's collection of over 2,000 drawings by Church, offer us a moment to reflect with reverence on the fragility of our natural world.
- Drawing, Iceberg with Strange Resemblance to a House
- graphite, brush and white gouache on light brown paper.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-273-a
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Drawing, Two Icebergs
- graphite, brush and white gouache on light brown paper.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-273-b
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Drawing, Floating Icebergs
- graphite, brush and white gouache on light brown paper.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-273-c
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Drawing, Floating Iceberg with Sailboat
- graphite on light brown paper.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-275-a
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Drawing, Sketches of Icebergs, Off Greenspond, Newfoundland
- graphite, brush and white gouache on light brown paper.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-275-b
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Drawing, Floating Icebergs
- graphite, brush and white gouache on light brown paper.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-277-a
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Drawing, Floating Icebergs
- graphite, brush and white gouache on light brown paper.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-277-b
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Drawing, Floating Icebergs
- graphite, brush and white gouache on light brown paper.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-277-c
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Drawing, Floating Icebergs
- graphite, brush and white gouache on light brown paper.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-284-c
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Drawing, Floating Iceberg, Labrador
- brush and oil paint, graphite on thick buff wove paper.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-289-a
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 2 images of this object.
- Drawing, Floating Icebergs
- brush and oil paint, graphite on tan paperboard.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-290-a
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 2 images of this object.
- Drawing, Icebergs, Twillingate
- brush and oil paint, graphite on paperboard.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-294-a
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 4 images of this object.
- Drawing, Floating Iceberg
- brush and oil paint, graphite on paperboard.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-296-a
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Drawing, Iceberg and Ice Flower
- brush and oil paint, graphite on thin cream paperboard.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-296-b
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Drawing, Iceberg, Battle Harbour, Labrador
- brush and oil paint on paperboard 1917-4-731.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-296-c
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Drawing, Foundering Iceberg
- graphite, brush and white gouache on blue-green wove paper.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-297-a
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 2 images of this object.
- Drawing, Icebergs Under Cloudy Skies
- brush and oil paint, graphite on buff paperboard.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-305-a
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 2 images of this object.
- Drawing, Floating Iceberg Under Cloudy Skies, Newfoundland
- brush and oil paint, graphite on cardboard.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-305-b
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Drawing, Iceberg, Newfoundland
- brush and white gouache, graphite on brown paper.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-319-a
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 4 images of this object.
- Drawing, Floating Icebergs
- graphite, brush and white gouache on light brown paper.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-365-a
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Drawing, Island off Henly Harbour and Two Floating Icebergs
- graphite on light brown paper.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-366-a
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Drawing, Icebergs at Midnight, Labrador
- brush and oil paint on paperboard.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-711
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Drawing, Off Iceberg, Newfoundland
- brush and oil paint, graphite on paperboard.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-714-b
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Drawing, Iceberg Against Evening Sky
- brush and oil paint, graphite on thin buff wove paper.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-731
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Drawing, Seascape with Iceberg
- brush and oil paint on paper.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-745-a
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Drawing, Seascape with Iceberg
- brush and oil paint on cardboard.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-745-b
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Drawing, Gray Iceberg
- brush and oil paint on paperboard.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-749-a
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Drawing, Floating Iceberg
- graphite on blue-gray paper.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-1102
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 4 images of this object.
- Drawing, Sketches of Icebergs
- graphite on laid paper.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-1196
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Book, After Icebergs with a Painter: A Summer Voyage to Labrador and around...
- book.
- Courtesy Smithsonian Institution Libraries.
- 11.2019.1
- There are 6 images of this object.
- Drawing, Sketches from Labrador of Snow on Land, Man in Boat, and Bird
- graphite, brush and white gouache on light brown paper.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-321
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Drawing, Great Island, Study of Rock Cliffs
- graphite, brush and white gouache on light brown paper.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-448
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 2 images of this object.
- Drawing, Floating Icebergs
- graphite, brush and white gouache on blue-green wove paper.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-298
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 2 images of this object.
- Drawing, Sketches from Labrador
- graphite, brush and white gouache on light brown paper.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-363
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Drawing, Floating Icebergs
- graphite on light brown paper.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-365-b
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.
- Drawing, Last Iceberg
- graphite on light brown paper.
- Gift of Louis P. Church.
- 1917-4-365-c
- This object is part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design collection.
- There are 3 images of this object.